Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 31 to 35.
A few months ago, a group of scientists warned about the rise of “extinction denial,” an effort much like climate denial to mischaracterize the extinction crisis and suggest that human activity isn't really having a damaging effect on ecosystems and the whole planet. That damaging effect is, in reality, impossible to deny. This past year, scientists and conservation organizations declared that a long list of species may have gone extinct, including dozens of frogs, orchids and fish. Most of these species haven’t been seen in decades, despite frequent and regular expeditions to find out if they still exist. The causes of these extinctions range from diseases to invasive species to habitat loss, but most boil down to human behavior. One of the first papers of 2020 to report any extinction announced the probable loss of 17 percent of Bangladesh’s 187 known orchid species. Some of these still exist in other countries, but even regional extinctions (or extirpations, as they're called) tell us that we’ve taken a toll on our ecological habitats. A similar paper published just days later suggested that nine more orchid species from Madagascar may have also gone extinct. One of the few extinctions of 2020 received much media attention, and it’s easy to see why. Handfish are an unusual group of species whose front fins look somewhat like human appendages, which they use to walk around the ocean floor. The smooth species, which hasn’t been seen since 1802, lived off the coast of Tasmania and was probably common when it was first collected by naturalists. Bottom fishing, pollution, habitat destruction, bycatch and other threats are all listed as among the probable reasons for its extinction. Even though the local fishery collapsed more than 50 years ago, the remaining handfish species are still critically endangered, so this extinction should serve as an important wake-up call to save them. (Adapted from https://www.scientificamerican.com/)
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42.
When I was a teenager playing Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed series, I definitely wasn't looking to learn things. But with 11 main AC games all set during different times and places in history - like ancient Egypt, Greece, and America during the Revolutionary War - I was bound to learn something, even if just by accident. And I definitely did. One day, my history teacher passed out blank maps of the Caribbean. It was a quiz I had forgotten about. We had to label countries and major cities. Luckily, I'd been playing a lot of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, set in the Caribbean during the golden age of piracy in the early 18th century. So I was able to draw on my life as a pirate to fill in the map, and I got an A. When I was seven, I learned to multiply quickly through a purely educational game called Treasure Mountain!, which had me solving math problems to progress up a mountain and collect treasure in a never-ending loop. And then, of course, there was Assassin's Creed. Ubisoft leaned into AC's educational potential, with very cool results. They did a lot of research to recreate Ancient Egypt in AC: Origins and Ancient Greece in AC: Odyssey, and they released an educational discovery tour for each game that lets you look around the environment with no violence, enemies, or time constraints. You can learn about the Olympic Games, and how Sparta trained its soldiers in ancient Greece, with real historical figures acting as your tour guides. Or jump over to ancient Egypt to check out mummies and climb on the pyramids. Obviously, Assassin's Creed can't teach you everything you need to know about the ancient world - but the games do make that world come alive for people who are reluctant to learn, like I was. If you're looking for some other options, Minecraft is incredibly popular with kids of any age. Minecraft: Education Edition is free for everybody with a student email until at least June 30, and features over 500 pre-made lesson plans for things like coding, history, English, and much more. For example, there is a lesson plan on how to write clear instructions for in-game actions, and another that lets kids learn about slopes by building a roller coaster. (Source: https://www.npr.org/)
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 26 to 30.
If you ask a group of people what eating healthy means to them, you’ll probably get a different answer (26) _______ time. For some, healthy eating means reining in a fast food habit or consuming more fruits and vegetables, (27) _______ for others it may mean occasionally enjoying a piece of cake without feeling guilty. Still yet, those who have certain medical conditions and even food allergies may conceptualize the concept of healthy eating in their own unique way. In short, there's no single right (28) _______ to what healthy eating means. Healthy eating is human, and as humans, we all have different wants and needs, (29) _______ inevitably affect our food choices. What’s more, what healthy eating means to you may even change throughout the different stages of your life as you grow and (30) _______ to your ever-changing needs. (Adapted from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/joys-of-healthy-eating)